Rick Carlisle: If Dirk would have been healthy all season, 'things would be different'

In an interview with Chuck Cooperstein on ESPN Radio 103.3 as transcribed by SportsRadioInterviews.com Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle talked about the disappointing loss to the Lakers over the weekend,
how much it meant,and how much different he thinks this season would be had
Dirk Nowitzki been healthy all year

How much different things would be for the Mavericks had they had Dirk Nowitzki the entire season:

“I haven’t thought about the comparisons between last year and
this year but there’s no doubt that had he been healthy from the
beginning that things would be different, but that’s not how the cards
were laid out. We’re going to play this thing out, we’re going to keep
attacking, we’re going to stay aggressive and we’re going to keep
fighting. There is no other way to approach this thing. 27 games left
and a lot is still left to be determined.”

Whether the plan is still limiting Nowitzki’s minutes even though he played so many in the Lakers game over the weekend:

“If we have to run him up to 35 or 36 minutes then we will. A
national TV game as you know is a longer game because timeouts are
probably a minute longer. That helps a lot. You can, if you rest a guy
twice in a half, you can get a guy like that through a game okay. We got
Dirk that second rest when it was 90-90 and we came up dry three or
four times in a row when he was on the bench. Had we been able to get a
little bit of a lead we could’ve maybe bought him another minute which
would’ve been great. It wasn’t in the cards.”

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